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We are a public forum committed to collective reasoning and the imagination of a more just world. Join today to help us keep the discussion of ideas free and open to everyone, and enjoy member benefits like our quarterly books.
You grow old.
You love everybody.
You forgive everyone.
You think: we are all leaves
dragged along by the wind.
Then comes a splendid spotted
yellow one—ah, distinction!
And in that moment
you are dragged under.
Yesterday as I sat driving past a field
I saw a school of children
with insect nets.
They moved very delicately over the grass
in their hunt for the future.
I think they were modern.
Basically I am killing
myself with cigarettes
because in the fifth grade
the square-dance teacher
made me sit one out.
None of this will help a baby to grow—
but ticks can kill you.
This is the junk of everyday life.
Let us flee from it.
I am old.
The breeze is too strong for me.
It is no longer possible to stand up.
I like to smell stones.
There is a whiff of snow in them.
In snow there is the scent of shadows.
Stones casting shadows on snow—
there are no nerves in that.
Now I am watching my secret thoughts
lest they escape.
Now you are following me, are you not?
Now you are with me.
Let us take off our shoes
and walk in the snow.
It does not happen everyday.
Mary Ruefle’s most recent books include Trances of the Blast, Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures, and Selected Poems. She teaches in the MFA program at Vermont College.
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